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A rockslide on Shelikof Street last month has delayed construction on the Shelikof pedestrian improvement project and generated some unanticipated expenses. During Thursday’s city council meeting City Manager Aimee Kniaziowski explained an emergency engineering and construction services contract that was before the council.
Kniaziowski said the work needs to be done as soon as possible to
reopen the road. A portion of Petro Marine Services’ property was also
damaged, and the city needs to repair that as well. The construction is
expected to cost $600,000, which Kniaziowski said is a large and
unexpected sum of money.
“So we’ll take all remaining funds out
of the Shelikof Street pedestrian improvement project, this phase of it,
and put it toward the repair. And also we will take money as needed out
of the street improvement fund and the pavement repair project fund.
There’s a small drainage repair that was already on the books and we may
have to use some money out of that.”
The council unanimously
authorized the construction, which is expected to begin sometime next
week and wrap up in early July.

“As folks are aware, the Shelikof project work by Brechan was
conducted to cut back that rock face toward the end of Shelikof Street
by Pier II, as part of the Shelikof pedestrian improvement project. The
work was done on May 14 and everything appeared to be fine and stable.
And on the 20th of May there was a slide reported late in the evening, I
believe it was around 10 p.m.”
Kniaziowski said the city responded to the slide and shut down that section of the street.
“Staff contacted the resources that we had available both locally and
out of town. DOWL is our design firm and they flew Howard Weston, who
has a background in this type of work, they flew him to town. And we
also had Golder Associates, who do our dam inspections, in town and they
brought a fellow over to take a look at the slide.”
She said the two engineering firms worked together to craft a new plan for the area.
“Try to sink anchors into the rock face and make sure they hold, and
then shotcrete the area. Apparently Golder has had quite a bit of
success with this type of rock face stabilization.”